Bernardo Paul - Deadly Innocence

In order to protect their identities, pseudonyms for Paul Bernardos ex-girlfriends and victims have been used throughout this book.

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright 1995 by Scott Burnside and Alan Cairns

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Tony Russo

Cover photo by Canada Wide Feature Service

Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group,
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New York, NY 10017

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A Time Warner Company

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

First eBook Ediotion: November, 1995

ISBN: 978-0-446-55035-2

Love, Honor, Obey

Never let anyone know our relationship is anything but perfect;
Always smile when youre with Paul;
Be a perfect girlfriend for Paul;
Remember youre stupid;
Remember youre ugly,
Remember youre fat

From Karla Homolkas self-improvement list

She was a vibrant, spirited young woman who suddenly became a deranged mans plaything. He was the child of an upwardly mobile family, whose father cut the lawn in dress clothes and whose mother was obese and unkempt. They came together in a night of furious, passionate sex, and from there began a journey into terror.

A Main Selection of True Crime Book Club

If this book has merit, it is entirely the result of the people who have chosen to tell us their story. For many, talking about this was a painful process. But, put simply, they felt the telling of the truth was worth the pain. Dozens of people whose lives have been touched by this strange and tragic tale have chosen to trust us to tell that story. For that act of trust, we are humbly grateful.

Some of these people we can thank openly: Van Smirnis, Alex and Kathy Ford, Lisa Stanton, and Patty Seger. Others, whose jobs and careers depend on anonymity, were no less helpful in sorting through the rumor, the innuendo, the falsehoods. We thank you, too.

We are, by trade, journalists. We are not book writers. No one knows this better than Warner Books editor, Jeanne Tiedge, who bravely waded through some three thousand pages of manuscript, guiding the mass of information that follows to its final form. Thank you.

Our agent, Helen Heller, is also acutely aware of our shortcomings as authors and our stubbornness as journalists. She, too, deserves a vote of thanks for her unflagging support.

As journalists, we ply our trade at the Toronto Sun. The Little Paper That Grew, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Canada and one of the great success stories in print journalism anywhere.

From top to bottom, from publishers to senior management, through to the general assignment reporter on the street, there has only been support from the Toronto Sun for us and this project. Our colleagues and superiors have endured two trials, secret meetings, coded telephone calls and just plain cantankerousness from the authors. Thank you one and all.

On a personal note, Mr. Burnside would like to thank his spouse and best friend, Colleen McEdwards: You were always there when I needed a hug or a gentle nudge. Always. Thank you.

Alan Cairns would like to thank his dear son, Robbie, who did without his father so many nights and weekends: Dont ever forget I love you. I would also like to thank Jennifer Beale without whose inspiration and support none of this would have been possible; Lahring Tribe, for teaching me wisdom; my late grandparents, George and Mary Cairns, who raised, fed, and clothed me and taught me wrong from right by their own example.

Alan Cairns and Scott Burnside

Toronto

September 1995

T o the south of St. Catharines, Ontario, between it and the neighboring city of Thorold, lies a serpentine-shaped stretch of water called Lake Gibson. Not far from two of the Great Lakes and the tourist attraction of Niagara Falls, this smaller lake is part of a man-managed water area that feeds the Ontario Hydro power-generating station at nearby DeCew Falls, which in turn feeds electricity to Canadians in the region. The scenic area has a long-standing history as a perfect getaway spot for country driving, picnics, skimming stones, canoeing, and fishing; a few secluded places serve as destinations for loversusually teensseeking privacy; if luck is on their side, anglers can net relatively pollution-free pickerel, lake trout, speckled trout, and, on a good day, salmon. Of all the people who visit Lake Gibson, perhaps only the fishermen, those who watch the waters most, would be aware of the water fluctuations in this tranquil lake. While the average water level is 556 to 557 feet above sea level, it can drop three or more feet during peak times of power usage.

On Saturday, June 29, 1991 at approximately 5:30 P.M., William Grekul and his wife decided to launch their canoe into the fast-flowing waters not far from a dirt path off a gravel shoulder on Beaverdams Road. It was a perfect site because immediately to the right of the land protrusion, a small back eddy, perhaps thirty meters across, provided calm waters. But upon reaching the waters edge, Grekul was dismayed to see that the water level had dropped about two feet. He would have to stand in the muddy bank to launch his canoe. It was then he noticed five blocks of concrete half buried in the slimy mud. With his wife waiting for him to push off, Grekul used a paddle and his foot to dislodge what he thought was a discarded patio slab from another block of cement. The concrete block tipped into the mud. To Grekuls bewilderment, the bottom part contained what appeared to be part of a human body. Refusing to believe his own eyes, Grekul turned around, climbed into the canoe, and pushed away from the blocks. Unsure of what he had seen and anxious to escape the hot summer day, Grekul shouted his apparent find to a couple of fishermen on a nearby bridge and then paddled off for two hours. Upon their return to shore, the Grekuls noted two fishermen standing a dozen or so feet from the slabs, completely oblivious to them.

Hey, you should look at those blocks. It looks like theres part of a body in there, Grekul called to Reverend Michael Doucette, thirty-eight, and his son, Michael Jr., nineteen. The elder Doucette assumed that the canoeist was pulling his leg, but he felt obliged to check out his find. Doucette trudged through the slime to the blocks and turned another one over with his foot. There, encased in the concrete block, was a human thigh and a human shin and foot. A thigh lay in the block Grekul had uncovered. He looked at the other blocks and it appeared they were leaking blood or fluids of some kind. The Doucettes ran out to Beaverdams Road and flagged down a passing fire truck that was searching for teens reported to have been starting brush fires.

Within an hour a dozen Niagara Regional Police officers from the forces Welland branch were at the scene. Two more concrete blocks were discovered nearby. As uniformed officers scoured the surrounding area for fringe evidence, detectives took a cursory look at the slabs. In just over six years as a police forensic investigator Terry Smith had seen enough blood and guts to last him a lifetime. Having attended the major crime scenes, he was used to photographing, taking fingerprints and plaster prints of footprints, preparing suspect facial composites of crime suspects, and taking weights and measurements of evidence. But never had he videotaped a scene as eerie as the one before him. When darkness fell, he elected to secure the area overnight and start afresh the following morning.

Tipped to something newsworthy happening at Lake Gibson, reporters and photographers swooped to the area. Later that night, police wouldnt say much about the find. The body was so crudely dismembered that they couldnt ascertain even a tentative cause of death; nor was there any suspected identification because there were no recent disappearances of young women in the St. Catharines area. Staff Sergeant Ed Tronko told reporters: Ive never seen anything like this before. Ive seen some pretty morbid stuff in my time, but never have I seen anything quite like this.